The Vampire's Origin
by apiratesmile
Summary: One day Renesmee asks her father where the first vampire came from. He tells her the story Carlisle told to him all those years ago. Oneshot.


The tinkling keys of the piano rose up in the air, leaving a haunting echo. Two sets of hands danced next to each other on the ivory keys. One pair, small and light, flittered over the notes like a butterfly. The other pair of hands was larger, calmer, more experienced. Touching the keys with a coaxing love. As the final notes were released into the room, the butterfly hands stilled.

"Daddy," Renesmee asked, her molten eyes staring solemnly up at him. "Where do we come from?"

"From your mother," Edward smiled, his matching eyes staring back at her.

"No, not that." The young girl rolled her eyes. "I mean where do _we _come from? Who made us like this?"

Edward searched his daughter's face, unable to find where the question might have come from or where the answer to the question lay.

"Carlisle told me a story once," he began. "When I was first turned."

Her name was Asrielle and she was the most beautiful human God had ever made or ever would make. It was not just the shine of her full lips or the wave of her raven hair that made men flock to her. It was the way she could grab attention with a whisper and make a beast go still with her touch. There was something in her soul that made her addictive. So much so, that not even Death could resist her.

One evening Asrielle's mother passed away. Age had turned the old woman's flesh rough and flakey. Her hair turned to a bitter white and her eyes empty of light or life. Asrielle could only stand helplessly in a corner, repulsed by what time had done to her mother. Death entered the room his great, black cloak heavy with souls. Bending over the dying woman, he tapped her shoulder twice and the woman's soul rose into his waiting arms. His business finished, Death turned to leave, only for his gaze to meet the tear stained face of Asrielle.

His lifeless eyes marveled at her pale skin, so much like his own. Flawless and untouched by the damage of time. Her eyes were bright, the color of gold as it lays waiting in a river to be discovered. Had breath meant anything to him, it would have been swept away by the sight of her.

Removing his skull carved mask of ivory, he knelt before the girl, touching her swollen eyes so that she may see him.

"Do not cry," he said his voice hoarse from centuries of disuse. The young woman blinked, her eyes finally seeing the world as it truly was. Standing before her was a man, cloaked in black and bending over under the weight of something great. His black eyes looked at her with such appreciation, that she felt no fear.

"How can I not," she breathed, unable to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. "How can I keep from weeping, when my mother is gone and I know my fate will soon be the same as hers? I am destined to grow old, for my beauty to fade and the memory of me lost from the minds of men."

Death had seen the tears of millions. For centuries he listened to their sobbing and pleading. The sound had fallen on deaf ears and the tears went ignored. But he could not do the same with this woman. He could not leave her so scared of time, so scared of him.

"Let me take that fear away," he said, running a pale hand down her warm cheek. "Let me make it so nothing can harm your clean skin. So not even the rage of time or the wrath of God can change you from the way you are now."

Asrielle looked deeply up at the man before her. His feathery hair was the color of dried blood and his eyes were so dark that it was impossible to see a soul in them. Yet there was something attractive about him.

"What would I have to do?" she whispered, afraid if she spoke too loudly he would fade away and the chance of immortality with him.

A corpse like smile graced his lip. "Give yourself to me and only me and you shall never fear death."

And she agreed.

"But what about her fangs?" Renesmee asked impatiently. "When does she get those?"

"I'm getting there," Edward said, tweaking her noise for interrupting him but she batted his hand away eager for him to continue the story. "All right where was I?"

Well years passed and Asrielle never aged a day. Every few weeks Death would come to her, renewing her beauty and satiating her hunger for humanity. It was about fifty years after Asrielle had first met Death that she first saw Him. He was like temptation in human form. For months she tried to resist him, images of herself old and grey helped keep him at a distance for a while. But it was not enough. She gave herself to him, reveling in this feeling of love she had not known existed. For years the affair continued with Death none the wiser. Finally, the years caught up with them and He grew older, weaker but Asrielle still loved Him. And when he was lying on his deathbed she would not leave him.

Death found her at his side, her eyes once more full of tears. Yet they were not of fear but loss and longing. Death grew furious.

"How dare you," he growled, his eyes flashing red. "I have given you a life without fear, without age and you disobey the one thing I asked of you."

"But I loved him," she cried, clasping his cold hand to her breast.

"And now he is mine," Death shouted, holding up the man's soul in his fist.

"Please," she begged, throwing herself on her knees before him. "Let me be with him. Take my immortality and let time run its course. I no longer fear age and death, not if it will allow me to be with him once more."

Asrielle looked up at Death, hoping to see mercy in the masked being's eyes. But Death only laughed, a sound like bones rattling in the breeze.

"You wish me to be merciful when I have given you the greatest mercy of all? I have given immortality to you as a gift but now you shall have it as a curse," he declared, darkness rising over him. "Your beauty will remain but it will be the potent trap that leads your fellow man to their death. I will no longer satiate your hunger, only blood will and you shall drain the life of others so you yourself will never fade. No longer will light highlight your beauty. The same sunlight that once warmed your skin will turn it to ash. Now your world will be dark and your skin forever cold. This is your curse for all eternity."

"But we don't burn in sunlight," Renesmee protested, her eyebrows knitted with confusion.

"You have the patience of your mother," Edward noted. "You haven't let me finish.

A few more centuries passed, leaving Asrielle with the nature of a beast. Alone and confined in a cave during the day, she stalked people at night. The need for blood turned her unbeating heart cold to the pleas for life. No man, woman or child was safe from her hunger and Death remained unmoved as he escorted her victims away.

One day, however, the pain and bloodlust became too much for Asrielle. As the sun began to rise, she left her cave to walk toward the glowing rays. From the shadows of a tree, Death watched her. As Asrielle grew closer and closer to the burning sunlight, the memories of who she once was flooded back to him. Even after centuries of feelings of hate and betrayal he could not imagine never seeing the woman he loved ever again. At the moment she was to take her first step into the deadly light, he pulled her back into the safety of the trees. Wordlessly he kissed her forehead so that the sun would not turn her skin into ash but diamond. Then he kissed her lips, so that her fangs could not only bring death but new life.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her, before he disappeared into the shadows.

"That's it?" Renesmee blinked, staring up at her father incredulously. "But why is he sorry? She gets to live forever and she doesn't have to be lonely anymore."

Edward looked at his young daughter for a moment, taking in her innocence and strength. She had the intelligence of an adult but only time could teach her the pain of a life that stretched for eternity.

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I'm not exactly sure where this idea came from but I have been thinking about it all day and I just had to get it down on paper. I apologize if there is not enough of Edward and Renesmee in there for you but I really just wanted to explore the idea of where the first vampire came from.

Hope you enjoyed : )


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